Martin Ping

Martin Ping is the executive director of Hawthorne Valley Association, a nonprofit that promotes social and cultural renewal through the integration of education, agriculture, and the arts. Hawthorne Valley Association is located in Columbia County in New York’s Hudson Valley and includes Hawthorne Valley Farm, a 400-acre biodynamic farm with dairy herd, onsite dairy processing, CSA and market garden, lacto-fermented vegetable processing kitchen, and organic bakery. It also features a full-line organic grocery store; the Place-Based Learning Center, which offers farm apprentice and training programs through Farm Beginnings® and a biodynamic intensive, as well as place-based, experiential education through the residential Visiting Students Program and Summer Camps, a residential program for children.

Martin Ping has been working at Hawthorne Valley for more than 20 years. During most of that time, he taught practical arts in the high school and for 14 years he was director of facilities and served as project manager on several new construction projects. For the past ten years as executive director, he has balanced his time developing working relationships among the Association’s diverse enterprises, and the 150 coworkers who carry the initiatives, along with cultivating collaborative relationships between Hawthorne Valley and other organizations in the Upper Hudson/Berkshire region and like-minded initiatives nationally and globally.

He has been instrumental in initiating several new programs and has several more in the works. Martin Ping is also cofounder and storyteller for The Magical Puppet Tree and has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.